Crime report: Shoplifters target local Dollar General

Bryan County News

Staff report
Bryan County News

POSTED:June 7, 2014 7:00 a.m.

From Richmond Hill Police Department reports.

Shoplifting

Apparently, it’s still stealing if you give it back. A Colorado man described in a Richmond Hill Police Department report as a transient was busted May 25 for shoplifting after he allegedly took two Mountain Dews from the Dollar General on Highway 17 in Richmond Hill. The complainant, evidently a store employee, told police “the offender appeared to be suspicious …” and “offender had taken a display six pack of Mountain Dew soft drink bottles and had removed two from the packaging,” the report said, noting the offender apparently realized he’d been spotted and walked back to the complainant and asked, “’here do you want these back?’”The shoplifter wasn’t there when police took the report, but he was tracked down and arrested.

The Dollar General was kind of a beehive of activity over the same weekend.

A May 24 report notes police were called after a woman was spotted putting a six pack of white ankle socks and two tube tops into her purse. The reporting officer spoke to the shoplifter, who “immediately admitted to taking the items,” the report said. “(She) advised that she has a drug (pills) problem and is supposed to check into a rehab center so she was getting a few items that she needed.”The woman told the officer she was wrong and apologized to the store employee, but was arrested anyway. She was also wanted in Effingham County – though it was unclear what that warrant was for. Also on May 24, police were called to the Dollar General after a woman put a medium bottle of Dawn dish detergent and “a blue bottle of carpet cleaner” in her purse “before exiting the store without paying for the items.”The store employee got the woman’s tag number, which police traced to an owner in Darien. Further attempts to find the car owner were unsuccessful. Finally, this one from May 19, when an officer was sent to Dollar General only to find the shoplifter, a woman, had “fled the building and was last seen running behind Savannah Tire.” He tracked her down behind a dumpster at a nearby business. She was handcuffed and taken back to the store. There, police learned from employee that the woman, who had a Rincon address, had put baby shoes from the store on her 1-year-old child and removed the tag. The employee also told police the woman also stashed baby clothes in her purse and when confronted she ran from the building.

All of that was on tape, police were told. During the arrest, the shoplifter apologized to the employee, who in turn apologized to the shoplifter’s mother. A check of the shoplifter’s background showed she had previously been convicted for shoplifting. She was taken to jail.